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Instruments for radio astronomical observations have come a long way. While the first telescopes were based on very large dishes and 2-antenna interferometers, current instruments consist of dozens of steerable dishes, whereas future…
Big-bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy measurements give independent, accurate measurements of the baryon density and can test the framework of the standard cosmology. Early CMB data are consistent…
Current- and next-generation Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiments will measure polarization anisotropies with unprecedented sensitivities. The need for high precision in these measurements underscores the importance of gaining a…
Direct photometric measurements of the cosmic optical background (COB) provide an important point of comparison to both other measurement methodologies and models of cosmic structure formation, and permit a cosmic consistency test with the…
Aims. The photometric validation of the Gaia DR1 release of the ESA Gaia mission is described and the quality of the data shown. Methods. This is carried out via an internal analysis of the photometry using the most constant sources.…
Breakthroughs in physics and astrophysics are often driven by technological advances, with the recent detection of gravitational waves being one such example. This white paper focuses upon how improved astrometric and spectroscopic…
We investigate the possibility of using future photometric and radio surveys to constrain the power spectrum of primordial fluctuations that is predicted by inflationary models with a violation of the slow-roll phase. We forecast…
High-precision astrometry well beyond the capacities of Gaia will provide a unique way to achieve astrophysical breakthroughs, in particular on the nature of dark matter, and a complete survey of nearby habitable exoplanets. In this…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) encodes information about the content and evolution of the universe. The presence of light, weakly interacting particles impacts the expansion history of the early universe, which alters the temperature…
Cosmic microwave background polarization encodes information not only on the early universe but also dark energy, neutrino mass, and gravity in the late universe through CMB lensing. Ground based surveys such as ACTpol, PolarBear, SPTpol…
Theoretical and observational cosmology have enjoyed a number of significant successes over the last two decades. Cosmic microwave background measurements from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and Planck, together with large-scale…
There currently exist many observations which are not consistent with the cosmological principle. We review these observations with a particular emphasis on those relevant for Square Kilometre Array (SKA). In particular, several different…
We evaluate the ability of future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments to measure the power spectrum of large scale structure using quadratic estimators of the weak lensing deflection field. We calculate the sensitivity of upcoming…
We present a pioneering achievement in the high-precision photometric calibration of CMOS-based photometry, by application of the Gaia BP/RP (XP) spectra-based synthetic photometry (XPSP) method to the mini-SiTian array (MST) photometry.…
Astrometry provides the foundation for astrophysics. Accurate positions are required for the association of sources detected at different times or wavelengths, and distances are essential to estimate the size, luminosity, mass, and ages of…
Supplemented with suitable buffering techniques, the low-frequency part of the SKA can be used as an ultra-precise detector for cosmic-ray air showers at very high energies. This would enable a wealth of scientific applications: the physics…
The angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) contains information on virtually all cosmological parameters of interest, including the geometry of the Universe ($\Omega$), the baryon density, the Hubble constant ($h$),…
Astronomical precision spectroscopy underpins searches for life beyond Earth, direct observation of the expanding Universe and constraining the potential variability of physical constants across cosmological scales. Laser frequency combs…
The detection of the accelerated expansion of the Universe has been one of the major breakthroughs in modern cosmology. Several cosmological probes (CMB, SNe Ia, BAO) have been studied in depth to better understand the nature of the…
Spectral distortions of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) offer the possibility of probing processes which occurred during the evolution of our Universe going back up to Z$\simeq 10^7$. Unfortunately all the attempts so far carried out…